Accessibility Links

With one eye firmly on the past, new chapter begins for East India Company

Adam Fresco

February 8 2010, 12:01am, The Times

Starting a multimillion-pound company brings its own risks, but when you are an Indian businessman reawakening a 400-year-old company linked inextricably to Britain’s colonial rule of your homeland, you are advised to tread carefully.

Sanjiv Mehta, 48, is trying to breathe life back into the East India Company (EIC), which once ruled the world of commerce, and make it a global player once more. The company was established in 1600 by Elizabeth I and was responsible for putting tea and coffee on the breakfast tables of Western homes and spreading spices across the globe.

A powerful arm of the British Establishment, it had its own armed forces, fleets and currency and maintained administrative control of Calcutta, Madras and Bengal. But on January 1, 1874, after…